Come Back Once More?
by Afgncaap8
Summary: Ever since The Master first died, he had come back again and again. So when he left again during The End of Time, The Doctor still expected him to return once more. So he waited.
1. Waiting

(A/N: I made this K+ mainly because I had no idea whatsoever how to rate it . . . better safe then sorry. FYI, this is in a universe where The Doctor didn't regenerate at TEoT, so it's still Ten, though I'm not giving an explanation for that . . . Feedback is always appreciated!)

The Doctor waited. At first, he kept going like normal, like he always had. Then, in a traumatic incident involving a kettle, a Dalek, and a pear, his regeneration cycle was damaged. No more could he come back from death. He started being careful, stopped travelling, he even let go the habit of taking up companions. The Doctor moved the TARDIS to London, where he knew that he would be easily found. There The Doctor sat, doing nothing but waiting. Waiting for him to return, waiting for The Master.

The Doctor never gave up hope, not like he had in the past. He had learned that The Master never really left. Not for good. He always came back, one way or another, no matter what happened. At least, that's what the Doctor told himself. It was enough to keep him waiting, that sliver of hope, that he would return, because The Master would return, The Doctor knew that for a fact. Didn't he?

Despite his efforts, his health wore thin. There was only so much waiting The Doctor could do. He was old and decrepit, an unmoving husk of a time-lord sitting by the TARDIS console, which was also damaged and slowly dying. The Doctor had to face it, his time was nearly up. When The Master finally did come back, he wouldn't be there to greet him. Still, in his final hours of life, he waited, and wished with all his hearts that he could see The Master just once more.


	2. Return

In a dark, dank alleyway somewhere in London, because it was always London, when it wasn't Cardiff, a portal appeared in the air. Actually, it was quite high up in the air. Through this portal a very bedraggled man fell. He hit the slimy concrete face first with a dull _thud,_ and the portal disappeared as quickly as it had come. The man groaned, rising up to stand. He looked at himself, as if checking to see that his arms and legs were still there.

"I'm back!" The Master shouted, raising his hands up high in his glee. He was rightfully excited, not just any time-lord could manage such a brilliant escape from a time-lock, albeit with a bit of a bumpy ride back. Plus, he had managed to stabilize his life force to boot. His celebration was cut short when he heard a sound. A heavy, oppressive sound that he had all but forgotten. Silence.

"They're gone," he muttered in disbelief, "The drums are gone. They've just . . . stopped." He thought for a moment, thought clearly for the first time in ages. Without the drums, what was The Master supposed to do? They had been his driving force for nearly all his life, and now they were gone. For a moment it seemed as if he had nothing left. Then he remembered that he did have something, he had The Doctor. But, how would The Master find him?

He looked around a bit, taking in his surroundings. Luckily, it was night-time, so The Master could use the stars to figure out at least on what planet he ended up on. He was definitely on Earth, early 21st century Earth by the feel of it. Not only that, but by the very obvious and very familiar clock-tower in the distance, he was in London. The Master smiled, while he found The Doctor's pet planet distasteful, his prospects of finding him went up significantly just by being here. If he was lucky, the right incarnation of The Doctor would end up around here some-when soon. Not wasting a moment more, The Master began to think up a way to find his dear best-enemy.


	3. Search

(A/N: This one ended up a bit longer, it just took a while to come to a stopping point. I really hope I'm not boring you by lingering on this part, but I feel that a few chapters of this are necessary. Also, I'm glad for the reviews, if there were only a couple. I tend to be my own worst critic, and when I look at my work I tend to only see the bad things, so it is great when people point out the good things! Please keep reviewing, and more importantly, enjoy!)

In theory, making a device that would track down a TARDIS was simple, The Master and The Doctor figured that out when they were only six years old. At the time, however, they had plenty of time-lord technology to fiddle with. Here, The Master was restricted to the primitive devices that the stunted apes here had developed. Even then he only had what he could hypnotize the Best Buy manager into letting him take. (While he was at it, he made sure to find a place to get a new suit and stole a nice black one and a pair of gloves. Hoods were reserved for when he was on the brink of death.) Still, being brilliant even by time-lord standards did him a lot of good on many occasions, including this one. In no-time, in this case "no-time" meaning many long hours of burnt fingers, ruined circuits, and long strings of Gallifreyan curses, The Master had a fairly reliable tracker cobbled together. Now the only problem was doing the tracking.

The reason this would be so difficult had nothing to do with finding the right TARDIS. The Doctor was really the only time-lord who ever gave this planet a second glance, let alone actually visit it. The problem was finding the right Doctor. The Master would probably find him at the wrong point in his time-line many times before finding a Doctor that had been through all the right events. And if that happened, it would be best not to be seen if possible, who knows what kind of paradoxes he could inadvertently create? Not that The Master had any problem with paradoxes, it's just that in this case a paradox would complicate things and make his life one big head-ache. No paradoxes or evil schemes for him, not yet anyways. Although, his conscience might catch up to him one of these days, now that the drums were gone.

He didn't have time to ponder on morals, though. A few seconds could be the difference between finding The Doctor and missing him, and The Doctor was his only connection to the world anymore, the only thing that really mattered. While the way that sounded made The Master cringe, it was true. There was no way he was going to tell him that, however. Even after last Christmas, he still tried to keep some of his former dignity and aloofness. Still, he _had_ to find The Doctor. It was the only thing for him to do. Come to think of it, it was the only thing he had been doing for quite a long time. Maybe this time he wouldn't end up torturing him and his friends, although it can be a lot of fun. It wouldn't be extreme to say he's made it a bit of a hobby. And what an entertaining hobby it was.

His mind still partially reminiscing, The Master turned on the tracker to see what it would find. Unfortunately, this was the point at which his luck ran thin. There wasn't a single TARDIS around, not even when he broadened the range to cover nearly the whole bottom half of England and waited for a few minutes. Sighing in disappointment, he turned off the tracker and tucked it into the pocket of his suit. He hadn't really expected him to magically show up right here, right now, but he had hoped that might happen. Now, The Master was left with two options. He _could_ do the obvious and wait for possibly decades for The Doctor to show up, but that would be boring, and not his style at all. On the other hand, he could think up something clever and find him in days, maybe even hours. Even a human could have predicted that he would opt for plan B.


	4. Theft

A/N - So sorry for the long wait. I was planning on working on this at the beginning of the summer, but then I was introduced to Supernatural and got hooked. Other miscellaneous things made me put it off, until it came to be many months later. I hope you haven't given up on me. I have the plot worked out for the rest of this, as well as another possible story, but I haven't put them down on paper yet, or in this case on my computer.

* * *

After hopping onto a few buses, The Master made it to Cardiff. Here he hoped to find one of the most advanced pieces of technology currently on the planet, Jack's vortex manipulator. He made short work of Torchwood's primitive defenses, though he had to admit they were advanced for their time. Killing the Freak when his buddies weren't around made taking his vortex manipulator easy, though it wasn't as fun as it used to be . . . although he did get a bit of a kick out of leaving a signed note, teasing the man with a few clever, rude comments. Now, if he combined his tracker with the rough Time-Agency technology, finding The Doctor quickly would be much more possible, if still quite difficult.

Even though the tracker only worked on TARDISes, he could still find The Doctor after the most recent Christmas incident (according to his time-line) by finding his TARDIS at that point in _her_ time-line. After a bit of work calibrating the two systems and double checking his calculations, The Master had a device that would find The Doctor's location and take him there.

* * *

Once again pulled forcefully back through the veil, Jack painfully made his way to consciousness. For a moment he lied there, wondering what had happened this time. One minute he was fiddling with an odd bit of broken alien tech in the base, the next he was dead. He hadn't even had a chance to tell how he was being killed, which was quite unusual. Worse yet, he hadn't seen his assailant, and had no clue how they got into the room in the first place. The self-proclaimed captain sat up and glanced around, seeing no obvious damage to the base. As he stood up, he caught sight of his startlingly bare wrist. His vortex manipulator was gone.

In a state of panic, he yanked his phone out of his pocket, about to call his team when he noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was a note on one of the tables that was definitely not there before Jack died. He rushed over and snatched it up, having to read it a few times before he was convinced that the words were really there. Ignoring his hurt pride from some of the more offensive bits of the note, Jack cursed under his breath before changing the number dialed into his phone to The Doctor's and pushed call.

He knew his attempt to contact him would probably be in vain, The Doctor had been ignoring him for quite some time, last thing Jack knew he ran off to the late 18th century after stopping the Daleks once again. The time-lord wouldn't tell him what happened that was so awful that he had to run away like that, despite how much Jack questioned him. Still, if The Master had somehow returned, they needed The Doctor's help. Who knew what kind of damage that maniac could do unhindered. As the call went to voice-mail, his hopes were all but crushed. Having nothing better to do than leave a message, Jack briefly described the situation, adding on a desperate plea for help at the end.

"_Doctor, wherever you are, you have to help us."_

* * *

A/N - The Doctor went to the 1700s so as to get away from most of the people who knew him in this regeneration, just FYI. I don't really know when the next chapter's going to be up, it may be tomorrow and it might be two months from now, I just don't know. Reviews make my day, and show me that my story is appreciated! Even critical ones are great, but please nothing rude.


	5. Watching

The TARDIS was very worried about her Doctor. He had always been so energetic, so ready to explore, those were some of the main reasons she loved travelling with him. But every time someone left him, there was always a period of depression until she could manage to shove him out the door so that he could meet someone and, hopefully, bring them with him. It didn't always work, sometimes he left without inviting the people he met, which saddened her. But this was far worse than a failed attempt at getting a new passenger. She couldn't even get him to do anything.

The Doctor had come to the conclusion that The Master would return, despite the likelihood of that being lower than ever. He refused to admit that the chances of it were slim, because to admit that would hurt so much . . . especially after what happened. After he found out that the drums were real, that none of it was The Master's fault, that maybe he still cared about The Doctor, seeing as he saved him . . . It pained the TARDIS to see her Doctor like this, but her attempts to help seemed futile.

At first she pleaded with him to go save something, but he argued that he could get killed, what with his ability to cheat death gone. After a while of this, the TARDIS got desperate. Just go for a walk, she'd ask him, or read a book, maybe even take up knitting again, just do _something _she'd plead_._ Despite her efforts he still ended up sitting there, grief rolling off of him in waves, just waiting.

During the first few weeks of him ignoring her, after she'd given up trying to convince him to stop, she was angry. Not just that, but furious, hateful even. Mad at The Doctor for what he was doing to himself, mad at The Master for hurting The Doctor with his absence, at herself for being so useless, at Rassilon for starting this whole mess. Over time, however, her anger slowly faded, leaving behind only sadness and remorse.

She thought of her poor Doctor, felt his suffering and wished things could be simple again. For a while she thought of better times. She remembered when he was a childish old hermit with his first companions thrust upon him. Once he sabotaged her mercury fluid link just so he could explore an abandoned city. Now an aged young man, he strode the stars, weary from his many exploits. All his losses haunted him, and while he'd run away for so long, he found himself crippled with only a small hope to cling to.

For a few decades the TARDIS let her mind wander, thinking of the many places they had been together, the things they'd seen. She tried her best not to think about her Doctor's current condition, tried to ignore the emotions she could feel leaking through their bond. Still, his contagious apathy eroded away her defenses until she was caught up in it, and joined The Doctor in waiting. She wasn't waiting for The Master however, The TARDIS had a grudge and wouldn't want that man around if it wasn't so crucial. Instead, she was waiting for her Doctor to be cured, waiting to see him smile like he used to, to run around solving problems. And wait she did. The TARDIS let her rooms gather dust, paid her rusting circuits no mind, and ignored her groaning frame as the two of them waited for over a century.

Then one day, a Thursday she remarked, the phone Martha gave to the Doctor began to ring. It rang and it rang but The Doctor didn't answer. This had happened a few times before, but for some reason this time the TARDIS had a feeling about it, she somehow sensed this call's importance. Although, perhaps it was just nothing. But as the caller left a voice-mail, her curiosity became too much to ignore. Tapping into the cell phone, she listened to the message. Recognizing Jack's voice, she began to cringe away from the **wrong** man's voice when she heard what he was calling about. Someone had stolen his vortex manipulator. That couldn't be good for the time-lines, old habits caused her to feel a hint of concern, and she listened on. When she heard who had stolen it, a wave of ecstasy washed over her. He was finally back. The Master had returned, and he would fix her Doctor!

Suddenly, her joy dropped sharply as she realized that with her so out of repair, there was no way for them to find him. They would have to count on him finding them, which might not happen for quite some time, though The Master having a vortex manipulator helped. Still, for all she knew, he might not even look for them at all, but knowing him that was unlikely. He was always trailing The Doctor for as long as she could remember. But he had always been trying to kill him. . . Many doubts flitted through the TARDIS's mind, and she decided that it would be best not to tell The Doctor about this, as it would crush him even further if he got his hopes up and had them smashed. She would stay alert, however, keeping a metaphorical eye out for signs of The Master. So she did just that, warily watching the streets of London, hoping for a miracle.

* * *

A/N - I hope no-one minds this TARDIS-centric chapter. References to first-doctor story arc "The Daleks". I don't know how long this writing burst will last, hopefully for a quite a while longer, reviews help sustain it!


	6. Arrival

After the devices were calibrated, The Master scanned outward in all four applicable dimensions until he located the appropriate TARDIS closest to his current point in space-time. Unsurprisingly she was parked in London, although, while The Master didn't know much about Earth history, he was pretty sure that nothing interesting happened in 1883. What was The Doctor doing there? He usually skipped the boring _days_, so surely he wouldn't land in a whole boring _year_. Maybe his landing was off a bit, that TARDIS was always one for screwing up coordinates. The Master had always wondered why he stuck with that old Type 40 . . . An unusual location or not, The Master was going there. After making sure to triple check his work, one could never be too careful with Vortex Manipulators, he braced himself for the unpleasant sensation of being yanked through the time-vortex without the protection of a ship and activated the wrist-strap.

* * *

Landing flat on his face in a dark, grimy London alley _again,_ The Master quickly recovered and stood up, glancing at the readings to be sure he was in the right time. After confirming that he was indeed in London in the year of 1883, he narrowed the range of the scanner to get a more precise fix on the TARDIS. It seemed he was only off by a few blocks, which he decided to traverse on foot rather than ride in a carriage of questionable sanitation. No matter what time you went to, it seemed that taxis were always filthy, he couldn't stand it.

As he navigated the map on the screen, he found himself change from a casual lope to a brisker gait as his anticipation steadily grew. He was almost there! Next thing The Master knew he was running across the cobbled streets, still gathering speed as he went. His hearts were pounding so hard they seemed to be a lingering echo of the drums. As he listened to them pound in his ears he almost forgot what he was doing.

When The Master turned one last corner, he nearly rammed into the police box at full speed. Catching his breath, he felt a sudden chill as terror gripped his hearts. He had no idea what he would do once he found The Doctor. This was where his plans stopped. As he struggled to focus, to come up with a plan, his mind was frustratingly blank. After a few minutes of awkwardly standing in front of the ship, he gave up on thinking of something. With an almost strangled sigh filled with conflicting emotions of fear, frustration, excitement, and practically everything else, he reached out and knocked on the door.

* * *

A/N - Sorry for the short chapter, but the story needed that last little push into confrontation. The next chapter might take a little longer, but I expect it to be interesting.


	7. Desperation

The moment The Master's hand came in contact with the wooden frame the door swung open on hinges that were creakier than usual, if that was even possible. The interior of the TARDIS was dim. The lights were red and sickly except for a small hint of blue, bathing the console room in a sort of a deep purple. What had happened to her? The Doctor would never have let his ship get into such a state, would he?

"Doctor?" The Master called out hesitantly. At first he was met with silence. Then, after a few tense moments, he heard a noise from across the rotor, it sounded like someone slowly shifting in a chair.

"Master?" a weak, raspy voice called out with hesitance similar to his own. It sounded like The Doctor, but it was definitely not his normal tone. Oddly, it reminded him of something, though what that something was he couldn't recall. Slowly, he walked around the console, approaching the other man slowly.

The Master froze in shock. Before him sat an old, feeble version of The Doctor's latest regeneration. He could feel the life-force seeping out of his fellow time-lord. That wasn't supposed to happen until after 13 regenerations, and The Doctor had only gone through 10!

"Doctor! What happened? Why aren't you regenerating?" The Master all but shouted. Slowly, The Doctor managed to respond.

"A Dalek . . . it . ." he wheezed, "corrupted . . . . regeneration . . cycle . . I can't -" and then the old man was interrupted by a harsh coughing fit. Awkwardly, The Master rubbed his enemy's back in a crude attempt to make him feel better, he had little practice trying to comfort people. Still, while The Doctor hadn't finished speaking, he'd heard enough to know what words would surely follow.

Once the coughs had ceased to shake the poor time-lord's frame, The Master firmly squeezed The Doctor's shoulders and knelt down to look him in the eye. "And you couldn't fix it?" he questioned further. Concern grew inside him as he spoke. He knew what the answer would be, but he just had to ask anyway. Jerkily, The Doctor shook his head, the joints in his neck audibly popping as he did so.

The Master released The Doctor's shoulders as he stood, bringing one hand up to rub hard on his forehead as if trying to knead a solution out of his brain. What could he do? He had finally made it back only to find The Doctor looking like he did on the Valiant after he aged him for 100 years with his laser-screwdriver. Wait, that was it! His laser-screwdriver!

"Doctor!" he yelled, getting the man's attention, "This is important! Where did you put my laser-screwdriver?" The Doctor just glared at him for a moment before managing to get a whole sentence out at once.

"No, my last acts will not involve letting you go off and kill more people!" The Doctor replied sternly. The Master cursed inwardly, of course that's what The Doctor would think, he might as well of asked him for a gun!

"No, please Doctor, that's not what I want it for. It has the Lazarus device on it, remember? Maybe I could use that to save you! You're dying, your very life-force is seeping away. Please, you have to trust me, just this once!" he pleaded. The Doctor sat in indecision for many long seconds, examining The Master's face for any hint of murderous intent. With a sigh, and a look of almost regret, The Doctor reached into his coat pocket and dug around a bit. Removing his hand again, The Doctor extended it out to The Master, offering him back the laser-screwdriver.

With a small smile of relief, The Master grabbed the screwdriver and immediately began messing with the controls. Activating the Lazarus technology and setting it to reduce his age by 100 years, he aimed it at The Doctor and pressed the button.

Flailing around as he had before, The Doctor's age lessened by the second. Counting under his breath, The Master waited the appropriate time before turning off the device. The Doctor panted for a moment before looking at his hands and feeling his face, both now rid of previous wrinkles. He turned to The Master with a wide grin on his face and The Master smiled back. However, as The Doctor was about to get up he felt a painful pressure in his chest and fell back in his chair. Panicked and confused, The Master checked over The Doctor only to find that one of his hearts had failed.

The Doctor was still dying. He still needed to regenerate or his life-force would completely seep away. No! He couldn't die after everything that had happened. Desperately, he shook the dying time-lord, pleading with The Doctor as if he could heal himself even though The Master knew he couldn't. It seemed odd, it was just like when The Master had been shot by Lucy and The Doctor was begging him to regenerate, only this time their positions were swapped and there was no hope for The Doctor.

"Doctor! Don't you dare die! You can't die, I need you! I've got nothing left! The drums are even gone, can you believe it? We could finally be together again, just like old times. That's why you can't leave me, not like this. I don't care if you lock me up, just don't leave me alone!" The Master broke into sobs, his tears staining The Doctor's coat. Looking up sadly at The Master, The Doctor mumbled three words so quietly The Master could hardly hear them.

"I'm so sorry."

* * *

A/N - THE STORY'S NOT OVER! It's just a terrible cliffhanger, please don't kill me. I seem to be really bad about those, they just seem like a good place to end a chapter . . . sorry?


	8. Energies

The Doctor was currently unconscious, and The Master had dragged him out of the chair and onto the floor where he sat with the limp time-lord propped up against the console. He estimated that The Doctor would only last for perhaps another 10 minutes, 15 if he was lucky. Having tried everything he could think of to stabilize The Doctor and get both his hearts beating again without success, The Master resigned himself to sitting here, watching his old friend slowly fade away.

Out of nowhere The Master felt something prodding his mind. At first he flinched his mind away from the unexpected contact and threw up all his defenses, then after a moment he realized that the TARDIS was trying to communicate with him. Slowly lowering the barriers protecting his thoughts, he felt her try to speak with him again. After listening for a moment, he shot up from his seat on the floor, nearly knocking over The Doctor.

"Can you really help me to do that?" he asked the TARDIS in disbelief. A low groaning that he could somehow tell was confirmation of this echoed through the room. Not wasting another moment, The Master began messing with the few knobs and levers on the ship that still functioned properly, though some of them required a little "persuasion". He knew the TARDIS would get back at him for that, but at the moment he didn't care. There was still hope that The Doctor might live, and The Master didn't even think about backing out for a second, despite the great risk that it would just kill all three of them. In his mind, he had nothing to lose, and evidently the TARDIS felt the same way.

The first task would be to establish a symbiotic link, much like the one she had with The Doctor, between the TARDIS and The Master. Despite them both hating the prospect of it, it was necessary in order to save The Doctor's life. Both of them wanted their dear Doctor to live more than anything. Once the link was established, he could feel the TARDIS's decay and, to some extent through her, his sense of The Doctor's fading life-force was more pronounced. But that wasn't the point of it.

Shrugging it off and getting back to work, The Master went to another edge of the console and harassed the sticky controls over there, though now each time he struck them he couldn't help but wince. As he flipped one last switch, a light burst out of the console and hit him square in the chest. Doubling over in pain for a moment, he quickly gathered himself again and ran over to The Doctor, grabbing hold of him tight.

He willed the regeneration energy into The Doctor, and it was rejected as he knew it would be because they had different DNA. Still, the TARDIS had come up with something that just might fix that. Willing the regeneration energy into The Doctor took nearly all of his concentration, but he would have to focus even more to manage to make the other time-lord's body accept it. This was the second part of the process in which the TARDIS offered her assistance. Through the symbiotic link with the two she could help him to control his own life energies as well as get The Doctor's to mix. The two of them, groaning in effort, managed to tap into The Master's newly stabilized life-force and slice off just a little, transferring it through the stream of regeneration energy to The Doctor. This made The Master feel a little hollow, but he'd had it much worse.

Now if they were lucky, despite their differing genetic signatures, The Doctor's body would no longer reject the foreign regeneration energy. Concentrating for just a little longer, they made sure to distribute the regeneration energy in such a way that, if all went according to plan, both of them would heal but neither would completely change their forms. After what seemed an eternity to both TARDIS and time-lord, the two semi-regenerations were over and it seemed that everyone was alright. The Master sat for a moment, gasping for breath after unknowingly holding it for so long, thinking in near disbelief that they had done it. Finally, after so long waiting, watching, escaping, and tracking, there was finally a time when they could all relax. For the first time in centuries, the two enemy time-lords had an encounter in which everybody lived. It seemed almost ironic that when this finally occurred, The Doctor had hardly even lifted a finger trying to save lives.

Throughout all of this The Master had kept a death grip on the other man, but now that everything was done, his arms loosened as he found himself both exhausted and enormously relieved. This combination was such that it was merely seconds before he joined his enemy in blissful unconsciousness.

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A/N - Yay! Everybody lives! I _am_ going to continue this, that's why I couldn't kill anyone off . . . But my plans aren't set in stone, so suggestions would be great (but I may or may not use them). Reviews are like doggy treats, they're positive reinforcement for doing tricks, or in this case writing chapters!


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